That’s what The Last Poets’ member Dahveed Nelson says! Most of you are too young to remember The Last Poets, but I was a coming-of-age teenager in the 70’s and remember quite vividly this amazing group of black guys “going in” on whitey over bongos—before rap music. The Last Poets are the eponymous fathers of the rap music genre. With classic spoken-word joints like, “Niggers Are Scared of Revolution,” “When The Revolution Comes,” “Black Thighs,” and “Gashman”—these guys fueled my blackness. I really respected these cats back in the day! The Last Poets helped give me my militancy and I still own that classic album!

But what’s this I’m reading by one of their members—Dahveed Nelson claiming hip-hop is responsible for Trayvon’s death? And saying Jay-Z is a “coon.” And shitting on Russell Simmons? According to this coon (and yeah, anyone who makes these assertions about hip-hop is an ass-backwards coon—with all due respect to your Negritude bruh-man)—hip-hop’s uber-macho gangster thug image is the reason Trayvon is dead. He says, “You can put the blame squarely on hip-hop.” I’ll just say you’ve become a “Hot African Mess!”

Dude moved to Africa!—the Motherland!—Akebulon!—the cradle of civilization where all religion was birthed or, as Count C.F. Volney (a white guy) wrote in 1793 in his book, “The Ruins of Empires,”“There a people [Africans], now forgotten, discovered, while others [we Europeans] were yet barbarians, the elements of arts and sciences. A race of men, now rejected from society for their sable skin and frizzled hair, founded on the study of the laws of nature, those civil and religious systems which still govern the universe.”

If we are to follow brotherman’s logic, hip-hop must’ve been around 400 years ago when many, many, many more blacks were killed (by whites). Did hip-hop kill Medger Evers? Did hip-hop kill those four black girls in a church? Did hip-hop kill Martin Luther King Jr.? Did hip-hop kill Emmitt Till? Did hip-hop kill Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman? How do you explain the thousands of dead black people prior to hip-hop’s advent? How about all of the black men that were gunned down in your era (da 70’s) while wearing bell-bottoms and platform shoes?

White folks didn’t just start becoming suspicious of black men in the age of hip-hop! They were locking their car doors, clutching their purses and crossing the street before hip-hop was a twinkle in The Last Poet’s eye! Eff’s wrong with you man? You just oughta have your hood-pass and black militant I.D. card revoked! As a matter of fact, it expired the minute you came to these fooGAYzi conclusions!

It is the most scapegoating excuse coming from the mouf of a supposed former revolutionary mind! Trayvon Martin’s death was the work of a rogue American citizen!

Dahveed Nelson uses those antiquated words “nigger” and “coon” to try and assert his “blacker-than-thou-ness!” That might’ve rubbed a black man the wrong way in 1974, but this hip-hop generation has flip-da-script on you old-heads! The new “nigger” is a N.I.G.G.A.—Never-Ignorant-Getting-Goals-Accomplished. (You can thank the son of a revolutionary for that—Tupac Shakur!) The new “coon” is a C.O.O.N.—Consciously-Optimistic-Overtly-Nihilistic. (And you can thank me for this!)

For all of hip-hop’s brashness—to think that gangster music and hoodies cause black people to become the victim of white fear and their need to protect themselves against that fear by murdering the assumed object of their fear is just a crock of sociological shit horse dung and you, Dahveed Nelson have just gone down in hip-hop history by making the most coonerific statements evaaar! Even Jesus wore a hoodie.

Nelson—a supposedly enlightened black man from another generation, who picked up his bed and moved to the Dark Continent — is still steeped in the oppressor’s religious mythology and language — the devil, Satan — to make a point about hip-hop by using mythical, fairytale-like imagery! (Where dey do dat at? “They,” meaning black militants of the Eldridge Cleaver/Huey Newton/Stokely Carmichael variety circa 1968.) I knew Stokely Carmichael a.k.a. Kwame Toure’ personally! He would never use euro-Christian imagery!

Does this devil you speak so knowingly of live in the center of the earth and does he have a pitchfork, horns and a tale? Talk about losing cool-points!

If Langston Were Here (For Trayvon…)

Way Down South in Dixie.

(Break the heart of me)

They shot a young black brother.

He was only drinking tea.

Way Down South in Dixie

(Black boy’s body, who cares?)

I asked the Lord White Jesus

What’s the use of prayer?

Way Down South in Dixie

(Break the heart of me)

Hate is a nigga’s shadow

He was only trying to flee!

Khalil Amani is a blogger for AllHipHop. He also writes for DJ Kay Slay’s Originators Magazine & Straight Stuntin Magazine. Amani also writes for Hoodgrown, Maybach and Sext Magazines. He is the author of six books, including the ground-breaking book, “Hip-Hop Homophobes…” iuniverse.com 07). Amani is gay hip-hop’s self-proclaimed straight advocate. Visit The Coonerific One at http://www.khalilamani.ning.com Follow on Facebook/Twitter @khalilamani. Youtube @ yahweh 12